Funding for tax-exempt federal lands rise

California has received more than $55.9 million in Payments in Lieu of Taxes funding for 2021 from the U.S. Department of the Interior, as part of $529.3 million going to 1,900 local governments around the country.

Because local governments cannot tax federal lands, annual PILT payments help to defray costs associated with maintaining community services such as firefighting and police protection, construction of public schools and roads, and search-and-rescue operations.

This year's funding represents an increase of nearly 2.5% to the state, which received nearly $54.6 million last year and $51.7 million in 2019.

Of the state's 58 counties, 57 received the funding this year. Payments range from nearly $3.7 million for Riverside County to $2,374 for Alameda County. Sutter County did not receive funding this year.

Payment is calculated based on the number of acres of federal land within each county or jurisdiction and its population. Individual county payments may vary from year to year as a result of changes in acreage data, which is updated annually by the federal agency administering the land; prior-year federal revenue-sharing payments reported annually by the governor of each state; inflationary adjustments using the Consumer Price Index; and population data, which is updated using information from the U.S. Census Bureau.

PILT payments are made annually for tax-exempt federal lands administered by Interior Department agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Reclamation. Additionally, PILT payments cover federal lands administered by the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Utah Reclamation Mitigation and Conservation Commission.

The department collects more than $10.3 billion in revenue annually from commercial activities on public lands, such as oil and gas leasing, livestock grazing and timber harvesting. A portion of these revenues is shared with states and counties. The balance is deposited in the U.S. Treasury, which in turn pays for a broad array of federal activities, including PILT funding.